One of these days, chatting with some celestial bodies, they all agreed that this eclipse in Catalonia had been unique. They know what they're talking about: they are professionals at getting in each other's way. They always want to get ahead… But what surprised the celestial family (stars, planets, asteroids, satellites, comets) was that this eclipse could only be seen "in the territory". A phenomenon more earthly than astronomical.

For thousands of years, humans have looked to the sky seeking answers, and few phenomena have sparked as much fascination as an eclipse. When the Sun disappears in broad daylight, the order of the world is disrupted. Before understanding what was happening, different cultures sought explanations and turned that extraordinary moment into omens, celebrations, prayers, and various rituals. And it is that eclipses have not only been explained but also ritualized.

In a short view of the militarized southern border of the EU, within the Spanish colonial enclaves, we already know that 141 people have lost their lives and more than 2,000 minors are looking for them. In a long view, the Mediterranean has been a common grave for a long time. In an attentive view, it is absurd that the old floats as new. Tarajal 2014, Melilla 2022, Portopalo 1996. When the structural ellipsis is never talking about the North-South divide, repeating migration to avoid declining poverty, calling a repressive monarchy a reliable partner, underestimating the Moroccan protests of the Z generation from just recently, or forgetting that the Strait of Gibraltar condenses, in fourteen kilometers and four hundred meters, the fine line that splits two completely antagonistic worlds. Where the shortest distance exposes the longest abyss, filled with ellipses. One of shameful geopolitics: the Sahrawi people, first betrayed by Felipe González's PSOE and recently abandoned by the most progressive government in history. And always the same vain fantasy: believing that we have nothing to do with all this. Don't look down at the map, lest the unequal pyramidal world explode in your eyes as it is. Rich world, poor world, we only need to recall in an accelerated world the televised show of the hantavirus from just three months ago and on board the cruise ship MV Hondius. The crisis finally left three Western deaths. We only need to contrast it with the last Ebola outbreak in Congo, completely simultaneous to the previous one, which has already claimed more than two thousand lives in a lasting information blackout.In a global view, the climate emergency, from the fires in Canada to the floods in Chile, gives no local or global respite. With the accumulated ellipsis – reiterated, repeated, reinciding – of believing that we can act as if nothing is happening while everything is happening. Everywhere. And ignoring that we are passing on the bill and the fractures to future generations. Rear-view mirror memory, Pasolini already asked premonitionally in the distant 1975 why fireflies were disappearing and today, here, now, we forget – summer 1993, let's say – when car windows, going on and returning from vacation with the windows open, were an impressive display of multiple insects. It hasn't been that long ago, despite the scientific community having been explaining for a long time, unanimously, the ecosystem impoverishment: the growing loss of biodiversity and habitats, the systematic and intensive use and abuse of synthetic pesticides, extreme climate phenomena or the predatory model of economic growth. In any case, between the Gavarres and the Serra d'Espadà, that fires are extinguished in winter and farmers and firefighters put them out, we have been hearing for more than two decades. As if we heard rain in times of drought. We don't look up, lest we have to take care of our own shit. In a bubble, it all recalls that viral video in which a Chinese worker explained why he went to work in a closed car: to avoid air pollution.

The images of saturation on the platforms and crowds on trains to travel by train to the south of the country on the day of the eclipse continue to have repercussions. This Friday, two days after the chaos, the Government admitted that there was a "collapse" on Rodalies (commuter rail) during the afternoon of the astronomical phenomenon. But the Secretary of Mobility and Infrastructure, Manel Nadal, defended that it only occurred on the way south and that, on the other hand, the return "was orderly". However, in the evening, scenes of queues to enter the stations, especially those in Tarragona, and platforms packed to the brim were repeated, and Civil Protection had to activate the Ferrocat plan for crowds in pre-alert.

With a modest budget – that of a mountain village of only 644 inhabitants – organizing the arrival of thousands of visitors to see the eclipse was not easy at all. But Prades (Baix Camp) managed it. The Generalitat had committed to helping only those municipalities chosen as observation points that, among other requirements, had to have more than 3,000 inhabitants and more than 55 seconds of total eclipse. Prades, which enjoys the accreditation of one of the best skies in Catalonia, was left out. Not a single euro. "Nobody has helped us," lamented the mayoress, Lídia Bargas, this Thursday.

1. Fortunately, time does not stop and the eclipse has already passed. With it, collective history, fueled by the media (the role played by 3Cat, or TV3, or whatever it's called now, will be the subject of some doctoral thesis in the future), has reached an unusual point and has made evident the degree of gregariousness we all carry with us. I hope the country's sociologists and anthropologists take this seriously and explain the mechanisms of this episode to us well. Not even the Spanish victory in the Football World Cup has fueled a phenomenon of these dimensions, at least in this country.2. As could be foreseen (and no expertise was needed), public transport, mainly Rodalies and the sinister society formed by Adif and Renfe, failed spectacularly. Everyone (or almost everyone) knew it, but people rushed to the stations, onto the trains heading south, on the morning of the eclipse. Surprising. Were any of the users trapped in that black hole unaware of the disaster they were about to experience? Years and years of mistreatment, shameful operation, lamentable services, institutional mockery, etc., are useless? Only to complain and lament that in Tarragona, on the way back, the disaster was consummated? What is wrong with the people of this country, with the regular users of Rodalies? And with those who are not so regular? I don't understand. Expecting Rodalies to work is exactly the same as wanting to see a solar eclipse in the middle of a snowstorm (when there were snowstorms).3. The country was already fumbling before the eclipse. Now it walks in the dark. We have descended one more step in the general erosion of public life. We have consumed the spectacle of the eclipse at sidereal speed and, when it became clear again, the country remained at the same point where TV3 left it before trying to abduct us with the spectacle. Climate change, droughts, and fires are in the usual place. The institutional eclipse is dragging on; pending files remain pending and full of dust; on top of the old ones, new ones are added. Suffocated by heat and stunned under an unforgiving sun, the invisible and silent Minister of Culture announces the possibility of throwing money into some national dance and theater companies, presumably public and well-paid. All this in a ministry that, like that of Linguistic Policy, is distinguished by its absolute discretion. They cost us money, but we must admit that they do not bother at all.

The day after the total solar eclipse that captivated thousands of people across Catalonia, some people might start experiencing eye discomfort or minor ocular alterations, such as blurred vision. In the last two days, the healthcare system has attended to nearly 450 ophthalmological emergencies coinciding with the solar eclipse.

Barcelona darkened prematurely for a few seconds. And even when the Sun was still shining, it was noticeable that it was not a normal day. The terraces on Rambla de Catalunya were half empty, a strange occurrence for a day in the first half of August. “You can tell it’s eclipse day,” explained Arantxa, a waitress, with less work than usual. In the Plaça de Catalunya area, however, some Barcelonans were having beers at La Sureña and did not hide that they were a few haters of the eclipse. They had no problem admitting it. "I don't care about the eclipse, I'm fed up with it," Marta said. "The only thing we'll do is light a cigarette when it starts. We'll see which lasts longer, the eclipse or the cigarette," Sergi said, laughing. They think she's making a mountain out of a molehill.

"Wow". Almost in unison. Never before had a galactic orgasm of this magnitude been experienced in Prades. About 4,000 people looked at the sky with super-approved glasses until the Moon completely covered the Sun. "Woooow". And many shouts. Some cries. Lots of applause and a lot of emotion. In Prades, which has one of the best skies in Catalonia, the eclipse could be seen perfectly, both from the esplanades set up by the City Council and from those prepared by the Prades Mountains Astronomical Park. People came from all over Catalonia, from the rest of Spain, from Japan, from the United States, and many French people.

It is the astronomical event of the century in Catalonia. Although visibility has not been complete throughout the territory, Wednesday's eclipse has left spectacular images around the world. We review some of the most curious moments and the most unique scenes that the phenomenon has left.

The first heat arrives and you're very excited to buy peaches, watermelon, cherries. But where you live, it's not their season yet. The shops, however, know that you don't know when their season is, and if you vaguely seem to remember, you don't care. Then, they fill the shelves with watermelons, peaches, cherries at a ransom price. You bite the hook and buy them. They are fruits from Africa or America, harvested green so they can spend a month on a ship. They have sugar, look, and little else. And then, when the season for local fruit finally arrives, you're already bored of eating fruit from elsewhere, and on top of that, the local fruit is more expensive.

The wait has ended and the day of the solar eclipse, special for its total condition, has arrived. This will only be visible in a very narrow strip of the planet, where the demarcations of Castelló and València fall. In Alacant, the phenomenon will only be visible partially.

They chartered a train for the occasion. That August 30, 1905, the railway left Barcelona's França station at six in the morning and returned to the city very late, at night. The reason for the trip was to be able to see the total solar eclipse from the new Observatory of the Ebro, in Roquetes.

The forecast of an exceptional influx of visitors to observe this Wednesday's total solar eclipse and the high temperatures, which will skyrocket the risk of forest fires, have forced the authorities to reinforce prevention measures in various areas of the territory. In Segrià, Granja d'Escarp, Seròs, Almatret, and the Montmaneu plains, access to wooded areas will be restricted; a measure that was agreed upon in Lleida this Monday in a meeting with representatives of the Rural Agents, Civil Protection, and the territorial services of the Interior, but which had already been taken previously in the Ports Natural Park – in Montsià, Terra Alta, and Baix Ebre – and in the Serra del Montsant Natural Park, in effect between 9 p.m. on Tuesday and 8 a.m. on Thursday.

When less than 48 hours remain until the eclipse, and given the announcement of the market withdrawal of some glasses models due to risk of eye injuries, at ARA we explain how you can know if the ones you have in your hands are safe and how you should use them to protect yourself while enjoying this historic event.

Few times has an astronomical phenomenon concentrated so much popular expectation and scientific interest at the same time. The total solar eclipse next Wednesday, August 12, will not only be a milestone for millions of people who will have the opportunity to contemplate one of the most extraordinary spectacles that nature offers. It will also represent an exceptional opportunity to test instruments, validate scientific models, and obtain data that, under normal conditions, are simply impossible to achieve. Catalonia and the Peninsula will be the global epicenter of astronomy.

In 1999, coinciding with the total solar eclipse visible in a small strip of the United Kingdom – the first in over seventy years – the Morgan family gathered in St. Davids, in the Welsh county of Pembrokeshire. Among those present were some elderly relatives who remembered the 1927 eclipse. "But, as often happens in the United Kingdom, the clouds prevented us from seeing the spectacle. Nevertheless, the most vivid memory is not of the missed eclipse, but of the family reunion".

"From noon until three in the afternoon a darkness spread over the whole land." With these words theGospel according to Matthew explains the agony of Jesus Christ on the cross. During these hours of darkness, which exaggerate the duration of a solar eclipse, the messiah endures the suffering in silence until, shortly before dying, he lets out a final cry of despair: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

The total solar eclipse on the 12th is a historic event and that is why we dedicate this Sunday's dossier to it, where we highlight the scientific significance of recording a unique phenomenon.

On August 12, the Moon will completely cover the Sun and, for just over a minute, day will turn into night. Catalonia will experience an exceptional astronomical phenomenon, which has not been observed in its entirety for over a century. The enormous scientific and historical interest of this eclipse has made it an unmissable event for both experts and astronomy enthusiasts, and the Government, together with the municipalities, has identified the best observation points.